


Monster of Emotions

by Melodious329



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25658194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melodious329/pseuds/Melodious329
Summary: Cougar doesn't want a new team, these so-called Losers.  He certainly doesn't want to care about these men, these strangers.  But as he gets to know them, he notices something strange is going on between their superior officer and Jensen.  This is especially upsetting as the tech may be the only thing standing between Cougar and self-destruction.
Relationships: Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez/Jake Jensen, Franklin Clay/Jake Jensen
Comments: 27
Kudos: 92





	Monster of Emotions

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: sexual assault in the military is a very serious topic that I am not qualified to really delve into. This is just a work of entertainment.

Cougar shifts his bags on his shoulder before he pushes open the door to his new barracks, his new team, his new home. He doesn’t want a  _ new _ anything, but he doesn’t have a choice. That’s the military. That’s his life. Inside, there are four men clustered around a battered folding card table, two seated, two standing. He drops his pack to the floor and his rifle on the table. 

“Hey, hey, hey!” one of the seated men says. He has ridiculous looking hair with white-blonde tips and his hands flutter over the computer in pieces over the tabletop, “Respect the technology, man. This shit can save your life. Or get you kidnapped by the NSA, but you know…”

Cougar ignores the younger man’s complaints, focusing instead on an older man with salt and pepper in both his hair and stubble like he’s been going grey since he was a teenager. The older man isn’t looking at the intruder in their midst, but rather concentrating on the folder in his hands. That’s the sign that tells Cougar this is the man in charge, his new CO. Still Cougar doesn’t say anything, just waits as until the man acknowledges him. But when the man finally looks over, his eyes are soft. 

The pity in those eyes makes Cougar grit his teeth. Like so many others, this man read something in a file and thinks he understands. Well, if this man knows so much then Cougar doesn’t need to talk. It’s like nothing else about Cougar matters but his last mission. Cougar has never been chatty, not after growing up with four motormouth sisters, not after a lifetime of being harassed for his accent, even in basic. 

“Cougar?” the Lieutenant Colonel addresses him and he nods at the use of the nickname. “This is Roque, Pooch, and Jensen. You’ll be rooming with Pooch. Settle in. And don’t fuck up the tech.”

The last is said with a smirk that tells him Lieutenant Commander Clay isn’t going to be a hardass. Pooch gives a wave, revealing himself to be a bald-headed man with an easy smile and manner. “Our room’s right there,” he says, pointing at the nearest door. 

Cougar moves the duffel with his clothes into the room but leaves his rifle on the table where he then takes a seat. The blonde doesn’t object this time as Cougar carefully pushes aside some of the electronics so he can disassemble his rifle. He left the cleaning for now so he’d have something to keep himself busy. 

The blonde pushes his strangely round glasses up his nose with one finger as he resumes some conversation with Pooch. “You can’t. You’d have to reroute the whole thing, which I could do but not in that amount of time. I doubt even Batman could do it faster. Right, Cougs?”

Cougar lifts his eyes slowly at his sudden inclusion in this conversation, stunned at the sudden shortening of his nickname like Jensen already has the right. Beside him, Pooch looks distinctly uncomfortable, as if speaking to the emotionally wounded man is unforgivably rude. The insinuation is that Cougar needs protection, that he can’t handle a simple conversation.

“Maybe Cougar doesn’t want to talk right now?” Pooch hesitantly asserts. 

Jensen shrugs, still fiddling with what looks to be a motherboard and not focusing on Cougar. “He’ll talk when he’s ready.”

Cougar actually stops breathing for a moment. Jensen isn’t staring at him or avoiding his eyes, isn’t trying to get him to talk or avoiding talking to him. He just accepts. Pooch seems equally stunned by the tech’s sudden burst of wisdom. 

“Besides Batman is not even as cool as like Tony Stark or even…” Jensen continues as if totally oblivious to saying anything noteworthy. 

Pooch doesn’t remark on it either, lets himself get pulled back into the conversation, now about Batman and comics. “You cannot seriously think any superhero compares to Batman. He’s got all the toys…”

“Spoken like someone who never read any comics,” Jensen interrupts. 

“That’s because I’m not a geek,” Pooch starts and then stops. “Shit, is that the time?” he asks, not waiting for an answer as he stumbles out of the chair. “You and your plans to build this super-robot-thing distracted me,” he blames the younger man on his way out the door. 

The blonde just grins up unrepentantly before sticking his tongue out in concentration as he focuses back on the motherboard. Their easy camaraderie pains Cougar to watch. It reminds him of what he’s lost, his team. They’d been together since he first became Special Forces. Fitz with his freckles and stories that were never true. Samson who always stashed tobacco on his person. Their tech, Williams, had been a geek too, but quieter and more hesitant. 

He looks over at his new teammate and sees those hands are finally still. Jensen is looking over at their superiors, his expression wary, or maybe expectant. Now that it’s afterhours, Cougar would have expected the higher ranking men to leave just like Pooch, probably go find a bar. But the CO has his legs stretched out like he’s making himself comfortable for the night. That’s when the sniper notices how often Jensen looks over, clearly focusing on Clay. The blonde looks very young then, like a huge mastiff puppy desperate for attention, all big blue eyes and huge hands. But if the younger man wants to join the other two, he doesn’t move from the table. 

“Can you believe Pooch thinks Batman is the height of superheroes?” Jensen suddenly speaks, focusing back on his hands. “Bruce Wayne is just the bank roll. He doesn’t even make the gadgets. I make a better superhero, right, Cougs?”

And just like that Jensen is drawing him back into the tech’s crazy musings, using that new moniker again. The tech with the goatee that’s obviously an attempt at looking older is unlike anyone he’s ever met. Over the next hour, the kid doesn’t stop talking, drifting through topics from superheroes to supercomputers to the history behind the drug cartels in South America. Some of it is even interesting. 

And through it all, he includes Cougar in the conversation like the sniper is an active participant. It doesn’t seem to be for Cougar’s benefit, not another instance of the pity that he hates. It seems to be for Jensen’s benefit, his own desire to not be alone. It’s Jensen who’s needy. 

Cougar knows that’s his Achilles heel, to be needed. After growing up the eldest to four sisters, it’s ingrained in him. That’s when he realizes he hasn’t thought about his team in the last hour. Guilt settles in his gut that he could forget them even for a second, like he should suffer the rest of his days for surviving. But there’s also relief, and something like gratitude. He lifts his head to look more obviously at the other man and finds blue eyes looking back at him. Jensen looks amused and smug which seems to be his default setting, but Cougar is also recognizing that there is always an underlying manic tension to the younger man. 

Jensen looks down again, pink lips parted to continue his ramble when he suddenly jumps at the sound of Clay’s voice, almost falling right out of his chair. 

“Jensen!” Clay barks, coming up behind the blonde. “What have I told you about hacking military records?”

Jensen stops mid-flinch, his nose practically touching his keyboard. Sitting up with a smile like he’s not being reprimanded, he pushes his glasses back up his nose and resumes yapping. “How do you know it was me?” he asks. 

“Only you would do this…” Clay punctuates the sentences by slapping a file down on the tabletop, “to Sergeant Wilson’s personnel file.”

Cougar hides his raised eyebrows under his hat, his curiosity stirred. The blonde, however, only answers smugly. “So you can’t prove it was me.”

“I don’t need to prove it,” Clay answers like an annoyed father rather than a superior officer. “We’ve talked about this.”

And like a child, Jensen looks chastened, suddenly unable to meet Clay’s eyes, his long fingers reaching toward the file but too afraid to make contact. 

But Clay just sighs as he picks up the file and gestures with it. “Alright, I’m tired. Let’s go,” Clay says, sounding tired. 

Cougar is confused, wondering why Clay wants to clear the common room. Then he realizes the Colonel is only speaking to Jensen who busily gathers up about half his junk. 

“And don’t use that shit in the middle of the night,” Clay orders gruffly following behind the still chastened and quiet tech as they make their way to the largest room. “The light wakes me up.”

A unit’s superior officer always gets a room on base to himself, not having to share like the grunts under him. There’s only one reason that Cougar can think of that would make the colonel share with a young naive man like Jensen. Cougar’s suspicions are borne out by the following sounds of walls being bumped into and then a squeaking mattress. 

It’s not his business, he tells himself as the sound of a low moan makes him hurry into his own shared room. He doesn’t even want to be here. But he can’t help being disappointed. 

*******************************

The problem with team-building exercises, in Cougar’s opinion, is that they do have the tendency to build team camaraderie. Even if it’s just commiserating. They’re all tired and annoyed at being forced to run through obstacle courses, but mostly, they’re all annoyed at Jensen. The blonde tech must be in the best shape of any of them because he always has enough air to keep talking. Cougar would actually be impressed by that irrepressible energy if it weren’t so annoying. 

“The Pooch is finished with these silly exercises,” Pooch complains as he bends over his knees, panting towards the ground. 

“I know, right?” Jensen concurs. “Haven’t they heard of the Geneva Conventions? This is torture,” he whines dramatically as he flops like a starfish on the grass. 

“The constant sound of your voice is torture,” Roque growls at him. “Don’t you ever shut up?”

Jensen huffs a nervous laugh, but the words still spill out of his mouth like a leaky faucet. “Did you know that Switzerland has ten peaks?” 

Jensen’s inane yammering increases their already high level of frustration, but Cougar feels particularly resentful. No one likes running these exercises, but doesn’t Jensen see that they’re important? Lives are at stake, and not just their own lives. And this kid is obviously too young and self-involved to realize that as he babbles on about useless facts and even more useless opinions. It’s clear he knows nothing of the real world, of suffering, of grief. He’s a privileged little brat, and the unacknowledged rage in Cougar’s chest makes him want to show the man exactly how violent and harsh reality is. 

Roque is getting in the blonde’s face when the Lt Colonel interrupts, ordering them to head over to the range. Despite the tension in their team, Clay never came to Jensen’s defense. If the two are sleeping together, Clay certainly isn’t doing him any favors, making it clear who has all the power in the relationship. And in that moment of frustration, Cougar is disgusted that Jensen would let himself be taken advantage of. 

His frustration distracts Cougar as he follows the rest of his team to the range. He’s been nervous at using his weapon, torn between memories of his last mission and the peace that using his rifle always brings. He certainly isn’t paying attention to the group of soldiers lounging about outside the gun range.

“Hey, Jensen!” a short stocky fellow shouts at them. “Heard you got yourself a new team.”

Cougar’s eyes narrow in irritation at the interruption. He doesn’t know why anyone would care, but it’s clear from the way the man’s buddies laugh that this isn’t a friendly exchange.

“Maybe you should give them a little incentive,” the man continues with a glance around at his audience. “You know, put that mouth to better use…” The man caps it off by miming a blowjob, puffing his cheek obscenely. 

Cougar goes stock still, standing in stunned silence when Roque and Pooch take menacing steps forward.

“I’ll fuckin’ show you what to do with your mouth…” Pooch growls as he stalks forward and Cougar finds himself taking a step too in solidarity. 

Clay finally steps in then, pushing Roque back. “Get the fuck out of here, Sullivan,” he calls out, almost casually, as if he’s heard this all before. 

It’s the moment Cougar realizes he’s already let his guard down around these people, this team, and he’s none too happy about it. It’s also the moment, Cougar realizes that maybe the tech does know of the reality of the world. Because, apparently, everyone on base knows that he’s Clay’s bitch.

Clay acts like this has nothing to do with him, like he didn’t create this situation for his team. He doesn’t speak to or touch the blonde and certainly doesn’t show any of the righteous anger of Pooch and Roque. Jensen recovers surprisingly easily, though he’s still unnaturally white as they walk away. He pushes his glasses up his nose again before picking up one of his weapons, checking it as Pooch and Clay supervise his technique. 

“I don’t know why I have to be here,” Jensen takes up whining again in that matter-of-fact way he has. “I get close enough to the target, that’s all you can really ask of a technological genius, really.”

Pooch snorts derisively. “I’m serious about gluing this gun to your hand if you leave it behind again.”

Jensen’s eyes go wide, deceptively innocent as he rears back. “Pooch, how will I type?” he asks in fake concern.

“You have to be alive to type,” Pooch grumbles. “Most techs I’ve worked with were a lot more concerned with their own survival.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Jensen replies smugly as he snaps on the protective headphones and steps up into the booth. 

They all put on the earphones then but he can still see Jensen’s lips moving as he squeezes off a shot. With affection, Cougar watches Pooch roll his eyes. 

Stepping away, Cougar goes out to the rifle range and begins unpacking his rifle, letting the familiar actions quiet his thoughts. He doesn’t want to get caught up in this. Of course, he knew this kind of abuse existed in the military, but it was never his team, his friends, his problem. And before, he had his career to think about. 

Now he doesn’t have a career, but he has his shattered heart to think about. It was never his intention to stay here, with them. He only wanted to get back on the horse, get a few missions under his belt until the brass thought he wasn’t such a lost cause, then bounce around to different teams until he met his untimely end. Was that too much to ask?

************

Despite his resolution to not get more involved, Cougar finds himself glaring at Clay from underneath his hat, though, no one else seems to notice. Perhaps it’s not far from his usual expression.

There is just one more hurdle they have to jump through before their first mission together. Cougar has to be cleared by medical once and for all. It’s just another reminder that he’s alive while the rest of his teammates are six feet under. But as he’s sitting down in the waiting area, he’s surprised when he hears a familiar voice echoing down the hallway. And then Jensen is being frogmarched into the waiting area by their CO. Coincidentally, Jensen has to have his hand checked by medical, as well. 

Unsurprising, Jensen is complaining as he’s pushed into the chair beside his teammate. He seems to want to be here about as much as Cougar himself does. 

“It’s been years,” Jensen complains to his superior. “My hand is fine, you saw me on the obstacle courses! And I was building a circuit board. Cougs, you saw.”

Cougar doesn’t answer, not that the other man ever requires a response. He is curious about Jensen’s injury, but he’s more interested in why their CO personally brought Jensen in, like the other man is just a child that needs constant supervision. Especially as the Colonel stays to wait with them. Jensen is massaging his right hand and muttering as Cougar watches the Lt Colonel sidles up to the registration counter, a flirtatious grin on his face for the brunette working there. 

With rising resentment, Cougar watches as Clay flirts with a woman right in front of Jensen. It’s as if he’s making some kind of statement that Jensen is just a fling, just a fuck, with no ability to complain about their relationship. No wonder others treat Jensen like that loud-mouthed grunt at the range. Cougar is just starting to feel cold fury settle like a lead weight in his gut, but then Cougar realizes a woman is calling his name, his given name. 

“Carlos Alvarez,” the woman holding the clipboard repeats, smiling when Cougar finally stands up. 

Glancing back, Jensen gives him a commiserating smile and a short ‘good luck’ while Clay still stands at the counter like a mangy guard dog. Cougar was so caught up in the two men’s drama that he didn’t have time to worry about his own appointment. It’s an unexpected kindness to focus on someone else’s problems instead of his own. 

Or he prefers to fuck away his feelings. He shakes his head to dispel the thought. Jensen is attractive, behind the goofy glasses, but he can’t think of fucking the blonde tech, for so many reasons. Still, he’s grateful for the distraction. 

***************

There’s no distraction once they’re on the plane to their assignment. Though, Jensen is giving it his best shot. The youngest member of the team has hastily assembled a dinosaur toy out of spare parts. Or it could be Godzilla, or a fucking duck, for all that Cougar can tell. The important thing is how Jensen is singing in an extremely obnoxious falsetto as he makes the limbs dance. Everyone tries to get as far away as possible. 

Cougar’s got his hands clenched around his rifle bag like it’s the only thing keeping him from plunging out of the sky. Maybe it is. He looks despairingly at the men around him, already caring more than he should. For all his years in the military, he had faith. He trusted his team, and his rifle. But he doesn’t trust anything anymore, not even himself. Now he knows his perfect aim can’t always save them. And he can’t accept there being nothing he can do. 

Everything seems a blur of too much light and not enough oxygen as they touch down and are sent on their way. They pile into a hummer and somehow Cougar finds himself sitting beside Jensen as the blonde pulls up the schematic one more time. Cougar’s already memorized the layout, but he looks over anyway to reassure himself one last time that he’s chosen the best vantage point. Clay’s barking last minute orders but he can’t seem to hear over the sound of his rushing blood in his ears. 

The only good news is that if he is stuck at a distance so is Jensen. The geek will be hacking into the system from a guard shack near the perimeter. Cougar tries not to think about why that matters to him. 

By the time they’re concealing the Hummer, Cougar is already sprinting away. He doesn’t like the others to be out of his sight, even for a moment, and that spurs his feet faster perhaps than necessary. He still appreciates how the scope lets him keep an eye on the others, all of the others. Being a sniper can be hard to learn, the patience, the stillness, the waiting. But Cougar took to it easier than most. He watches as first Jensen then Pooch breaks off from the group until it’s only Roque and Clay that penetrate the complex. Those are the ones that Cougar needs to worry about the most. 

Though, he’s tempted to let Clay get his ass shot as a punishment. Blowing out a breath, he lets the thought float away as he sinks further into the muddy earth. That’s not the way to handle this. If they can’t trust their team to have their back, it’d be chaos. The military would fall apart. 

The comms are mostly silent, until Jensen evidently makes it to his post and starts talking. Cougar couldn’t see how Jensen took out the one measly guard but it must have been silent. He’s almost impressed. It’s hard to remember that the tech isn’t actually as green as he seems. 

“Guys, oh my god,” Jensen starts like a teenager talking on the phone. “This thing is an antique! It’s from 1984, I swear to God. I’m surprised it doesn’t take punch cards…”

Cougar is reminding himself again that Jensen is not as green as he seems when things start to go bad. Clay and Roque have been spotted and, though Cougar silenced those guards, if they don’t get through that door pronto then they are going to be surrounded. Practically vibrating with the need to run down there, to be with them, to be doing anything besides just sitting here while his team are killed, he almost doesn’t hear what’s said on the comms. 

“Jensen, now,” Clay growls. 

“I can only go as fast as this antique,” Jensen sing-songs in a stressed way. “What the…”

Jensen’s confused exclamation is mostly lost as the door finally opens for Clay and Roque and they hurry through. The two men disappear from Cougar’s sight line and he twitches with the need to follow them. To distract himself, Cougar swings his sight to Pooch and then to Jensen. Ascertaining that they’re both safe, Cougar flexes his fingers, ready to stand up, to abandon his post and damn the consequences when he sees Jensen has beat him to it.

The tech is off and sprinting straight into the compound, long coltish legs eating up the distance and the sunlight glaring off his glasses. Cougar freezes as he just stares. If he leaves now, then he won’t be able to keep an eye on the brat. And nobody knows where Jensen’s off to. This must be what Pooch was talking about concerning Jensen’s sense of self-preservation. At least, Jensen has his gun.

Still literally vibrating with tension, Cougar settles back down and forces himself to do his job, scanning the area for threats to his reckless teammate. 

“Jensen’s on the move,” Cougar says into comms, ignoring how his voice creaks like an old screen door. 

“Jensen!” Clay yells even as Cougar takes another shot. 

As if the shot was his mark, Jensen takes a flying leap into an open window. Only to dive back out. It’s an easy shot for Cougar to take out the two men inside. 

Jensen shoots a cheeky salute in his direction before hopping back in the window. Adjusting just a smidge to the right allows Cougar to watch the tech bend over another computer, this one definitely not an antique. 

“Sorry, boss,” Jensen quips, not sounding sorry at all to Cougar’s chagrin. “Somebody’s gonna be very happy when they see what I found.”

“We talked about this,” Clay grumbles, sounding like he’s got trouble on his end too and Cougar tightens his jaw. 

“You can force a hacker into the military, but you can’t take the hacking out of the hacker, as they say,” Jensen replies nonsensically. 

There’s no way to anticipate the shots that suddenly splinter the closed door making Jensen drop down out of sight, but that doesn’t assuage Cougar’s feelings of guilt. His response is to obliterate the door and anyone behind it with his own fire. Now he can see through the door and anyone else who might come, but he still can’t see Jensen. His heartbeat is hammering in his throat before a whiny moan comes through the comm. 

“Ooowwww,” Jensen whines dramatically. “They shot me! Why would they shoot the poor computer geek? Ow, ow,” he continues to whine as his blonde head pops up into Cougar’s sightline again. 

There seems to be a collective sigh of relief over the comms. The idiot can’t be hurt that badly and complain this much. Still, there’s a large splotch of dark blood staining the tech’s left shoulder. 

“Cougar, how’s he look?” Clay asks.

“Left shoulder wound,” Cougar responds immediately. “Still ambulatory and moving the arm.”

“Sure, ask him,” Jensen bitches as he bends over the computer again. “I’m the one who got frickin’ shot.”

The blonde is taking things out of the pockets of his tak vest and plugging them in now. It takes a moment for Cougar to realize that if Jensen has all this computer equipment in his vest, he can’t have anything useful in there, like say, magazine clips. Cougar frowns and clenches his hands momentarily on his rifle. It’s a good thing that he stayed on his perch because somebody needs to keep an eye on this fool. 

He’s still processing how Jensen was the only thing that kept him in position when Jensen jumps back out the window and Cougar is busy clearing his way to Pooch. 

“Everybody to the rendezvous,” Clay orders in his ear. “Roque and I are coming out.”

Cougar only waits to see Jensen meet Pooch on the perimeter before he packs up. Still the three of them meet first at the Hummer. 

Able to catch their breath a moment, Pooch socks a good one into Jensen’s uninjured shoulder. 

“Ow!” Jensen cries out, though he can’t have been surprised by the response. It’s the least of what he deserves for that stunt. “I’m injured.”

And he does look hurt, bruised blue eyes like a kicked puppy who was expecting praise. 

“I told you about haring off!” Pooch retorts but his tone is indulgent. 

“Jensen,” Cougar interrupts. But then he’s not sure what he wanted to say. He wants to hit Jensen too, and hug him, and thank him. He wants to confess how close he was to losing it and demand that Jensen never leave his sight. But all he can say is, “Let me patch that,” with a nod at Jensen’s wound. 

“It can wait,” Jensen deflects, suddenly changing his tune. “It’s just a flesh wound as you keep pointing out.”

“Now it’s a flesh wound?!” Pooch screeches. “You screamed like you were dying.”

“It’ll just take a moment,” Cougar explains. 

Pooch takes a step forward and Jensen actually flinches away,  _ flinches _ , from Pooch. 

“It’ll keep then,” he tries to be casual as he tries to move further away. “Hey, Cougs is talking! I figured you’d stop after the mission. But you’re still…talking.”

It’s an obvious distraction and Cougar looks to Pooch to see if the other man noticed. But Pooch only looks uncomfortable with Cougar’s issues being pointed out. “Where are they?” Pooch also changes the subject.

“Here,” Clay answers, jogging up while Roque is still looking behind them. The older man has a small grin of accomplishment on his face as he comes up to Jensen immediately and grabs his arm. 

“Lemme see that,” Clay orders, already pulling aside the blonde’s ruined tshirt. 

Jensen grumbles out a small complaint but acquiesces to their superior’s request. Cougar can now see the wound is a furrow in the meat between Jensen’s shoulder and neck, only a bit further in either direction would have been disastrous. Cougar feels sick. 

“I’ll stitch it up when we make camp,” Clay says with a last clap to the younger man’s shoulder that Jensen doesn’t flinch from.

Cougar can’t believe it. The Lt Colonel is so possessive that nobody else can even give the tech medical care, that Jensen flinches from anyone else’s touch. After the mission, Cougar is still amped up, and his protective instinct for the younger man seems to have ballooned into a need, a need to save the younger man.

As they all clamber back inside their ride, Cougar sits near the window again boxing Jensen in. Despite the yammering on about whatever it was on that computer, Cougar can see that the lines of pain in Jensen’s expression become deeper the longer they drive. He’s beginning to realize that the other man communicates in much the same way as himself, rather than through the constant stream of words. 

They can’t get pulled out tonight so they head to their chosen campsite. Cougar hangs back, watching the dynamic as they set up. They settle down in a huddle, almost a circle, Roque next to Clay and Pooch on the other side by Jensen. Which leaves Cougar on the opposite side of the circle so that he can clearly watch their CO. Distractedly checking his own gear, Cougar surreptitiously watches as Clay sits the injured man down and begins cleaning the wound. Jensen yelps and yowls like a scalded cat but lets the older man manipulate him. Once the stitches are in, the two men start arguing in whispers. Clay pushes a packet of painkillers at his subordinate until, finally, Jensen gives in, taking the pills and swallowing them. 

Cougar bristles at the presumption. Jensen is an adult who handled himself on the mission. He should be allowed to make his own decisions, no matter how stupid. Cougar would demand the same freedom. Afterwards, Clay points at the tent but sighs in resignation when Jensen won’t go to bed. The rest pull out their rations, eating in a circle in front of their packs. Cougar can see even in the dying light that he’s not the only one who’s noticed the odd scene. 

“It was just a scratch,” Pooch tries, but a shrug from Clay is his only answer. 

Jensen has gone silent, no longer even complaining. He blinks long and slow before he shakes himself awake again. Pooch looks between the injured man and Cougar, but he reluctantly gets in his sleeping bag while Roque takes first watch. Clay stays awake as well, chatting to his SIC. But it seems to Cougar that the colonel is standing guard, between Jensen and the rest of them. It feels like a challenge, and Cougar is not going to back down and let him ruin a man. So Cougar makes himself comfortable against a nearby branch. 

Jensen had been falling asleep, but suddenly he jerks awake with a gasp, grabbing at Clay’s forearm. Cougar watches avidly as Clay shushes the confused, scared young man. Of course, Jensen wouldn’t be the first soldier to have nightmares, but it’s the way that he immediately reaches out to the man abusing him. Surprisingly, the CO doesn’t push the hands off, he stays still and looks directly into Jensen’s face. 

Once Clay has caught the anxious man’s eyes, he says clearly, “Go to sleep.”

But Jensen is already shaking his head, his whole body swaying from the drugs he’s fighting. Cougar hears Roque huff a laugh, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the blonde. Jensen seems only aware of their superior who repeats his command. Obstinately, Jensen still refuses, letting go of the other man and looking away, no longer begging Clay for some kind of assistance. Cougar wants to rip the younger man away, hide him away to keep him safe. 

Slowly, the injured man’s eyelids slide shut and he tilts sideways until he’s curled up on the ground, asleep. No one comments. Soon after, Roque heads to bed after his turn, leaving both Clay and Cougar awake. They don’t speak as first Clay’s watch and then Cougar’s own turn come and go. And they don’t bother waking Pooch. 

Jensen is groggy and compliant in the morning, too drowsy to really seem concerned about where he slept. Pooch is confused and Roque quiet and suspicious-looking, but an understanding seems to have been reached between Cougar and Clay. Not that either of them says anything about it. But Clay doesn’t stop him when he follows Jensen over to the medic, both of them hovering as Jensen is seen to. Though, there’s not much the doc can do besides hand out some prescriptions. 

Jensen perks up throughout the day, chattering away as he notices Cougar stays with him. He seems to take Clay’s hovering presence for granted, barely speaking directly to him. And when they all go out to a bar to ‘celebrate’, Clay leaves Jensen and Cougar to play darts while the older man first chats with Roque and then hits on a blonde woman. Jensen barely even looks over to the older man, seeming perfectly happy to hang with Cougar. 

Jensen throws another dart that lands just off where he wants it and spins around with a pout. Cougar can’t help the way his lips quirk up in a smile anymore. It’s just that the awful facial hair doesn’t do enough to prevent the tech from looking like a child. 

Those eyes light up again in irrepressible enthusiasm as they catch sight of the petite dark waitress approaching. The dork has been trying to get a drink all night despite being on painkillers. Cougar just snatches up the beer with a smile for the girl. This time he does chuckle at the face that Jensen makes. 

Then they realize that the waitress also left her number and winks at Cougar as she heads back to the bar. 

“That’s so unfair,” Jensen whines about this development as well. “It’s just cause you’re so cool with your hat, and the hair…” 

The words are teasing, but Jensen’s eyes are earnest as they focus on Cougar’s face. For a moment, blue eyes meet brown with a look of common appreciation. Until Jensen, flustered, looks away, down to the tabletop and then, inevitably, over to Clay’s hulking form. The Lt Colonel is never far from either of their minds and Cougar glances over at the man himself as he takes a swig from the green bottle. He can’t fathom what game Clay is playing. 

Jensen turns back to Cougar with tension in his smile and it makes Cougar want to absolutely skin Clay. And tension just makes Jensen run his mouth more, like the words are trying to escape. 

“Don’t chicks dig scars?” Jensen continues whining, twirling the last dart in his hand. “I’m the one that got shot. Dude, the NSA is gonna flip over what I found.” He chuckles as he turns back to the dartboard, then adds more contemplatively. “Maybe they’ll forget about that last satellite. They still have no proof that was even me. Just because it was pointed towards…”

Cougar is slightly confused what the NSA has to do with their mission, but his focus is still more on Clay’s motives than Jensen’s rambling. Of course when they return back to the barracks, it’s painfully clear which of them is winning. Cougar and Jensen enter the common room together, the younger still chattering when they’re interrupted by a huge hand on the back of a pale neck. 

“C’mon,” Clay orders, shaking the younger man in a peculiarly fatherly way. “I’m tired.”

Clay veritably shoves Jensen through the door of their room. But as Clay turns to close their door behind them, Cougar catches a glimpse of Jensen already stripping off his shirt wincing at the movement. Cougar doesn’t stick around to hear what noises come from their room that night. He heads back to the bar, getting sloppy before he fucks the waitress in her dingy walk-up apartment. 

But the game continues the next night. They’re all hanging in the common room, except for Pooch who’s been on a ‘date’ pretty much every moment since they got back. Suddenly, Roque and Clay stand and announce they’re going to pick up dinner. It’s not unusual except for the wordless conversation that goes on between Clay and Jensen. The young tech looks shocked that the older man would let him out of sight. Jensen starts talking even faster and his hands are a blur assembling some robot motherboard while the two men leave. 

After a few minutes, Jensen seems to settle again, looking over to see that Cougar hasn’t moved since Clay left. Jensen smiles a little and his eyelashes flutter as he looks back down at his current project. But when the pale hand reaches for another piece of equipment, his fingers find Cougar’s instead. Jensen looks up in surprise and then licks his full bottom lip in a picture of unconscious arousal. This time it is Cougar who looks away, though he doesn’t remove his hand. While they are technically the same rank, they’re on the same team and Jensen is…taken. Cougar doesn’t want to take advantage of the younger man when he’s already in a precarious position. 

Clay comes back quickly enough with dinner, but like a test, he’s gone longer the next night, he and Roque off to a bar. 

Cougar stands to put something back in his room but Jensen isn’t seated when he gets back. Jensen stalks forward until his larger body is caging Cougar against the wall, but the frightened look of Jensen’s young face says he’s not at all aware of how large and imposing he is. That thought is reiterated when the younger man drops to his knees, hands clenching reflexively on Cougar’s belt, Adam’s apple bobbing with a nervous swallow. 

Cougar is certainly no stranger to quick blowjobs before his roommate gets back but he already wants more than that from Jensen. And the idea that this is undoubtedly what Clay likes from his subordinate only hardens Cougar’s resolve. 

Cupping one cheek with a hand, Cougar doesn’t have to bend too far to kiss those plush lips. At first, Jensen is utterly still, caught off guard, but then he kisses back, too hard, too fast, and uncoordinated. He kisses like Cougar will be stolen away any moment. And maybe that isn’t too far from the truth. It’s easy, then, to coax Jensen to standing and following as Cougar backs into his own room. They barely even break apart as Cougar climbs backward into the bed, pressing his back against the wall so that they have room to face each other on their sides. Jensen seems hesitant to initiate anything so it’s Cougar who pushes up the tech’s ridiculous green and yellow tshirt to get at an impressively built chest covered with wiry hair. 

Jensen’s huge hands mostly just clutch at Cougar, rending his button-down shirt, dragging the smaller body closer until Cougar can barely get a hand between them to unfasten their pants. When Cougar pulls his dick out of his boxers, he has to break away from Jensen’s mouth to breathe. He feels like he’s being swallowed whole by the other man’s ardor, his face feeling irritated from that ill-conceived goatee. 

But Jensen doesn’t even seem to care that his dick is still trapped behind a layer of cotton, Cougar only managing to get the zipper down. In fact, Jensen seems grateful for any little bit that he’s given. His hands spread wide over Cougar’s back, pulling the smaller man on top of him as he rolls to his back. 

Grunting in surprise, Cougar steadies himself on Jensen’s wide chest even as Jensen bucks underneath him Trying to get ever closer, the blonde arches his chest up, then rolls his hips, bringing his legs up to cradle Cougar, using his thighs to squeeze Cougar’s hips, even using his toes to urge Cougar on, begging with his whole body for what his mind is too scared to acknowledge. Dark hair falls like a curtain around Cougar’s face before he leans down, pressing his forehead against the sharp jut of Jensen’s uninjured shoulder. It’s a surprise when Jensen cums first, focused as Cougar is on his own orgasm. Cougar doesn’t even stop humping, just rides out Jensen’s convulsions like he has all of the blonde’s writhing. 

Jensen’s chest is still heaving when Cougar’s finished, rocking Cougar like the ocean. Suddenly hot in his clothes, Cougar pushes aside one long leg still caging him so he can roll off to the side. He wonders whether it’s too late at this point to strip them both down before cuddling. The edges of his mouth quirk upwards in a smile because he can only imagine how enthusiastic a cuddler Jensen is. 

That’s when Jensen suddenly turns away from him, swinging long legs over the side of the twin bed and stands up. It’s the work of only a moment for Jensen to button his pants and then he’s jettisoning from the room, moving too fast to even close the door behind him. Cougar hears the sound of another door opening and closing as he lies there with his dick still out. Cougar doesn’t need to look to know that it wasn’t the door outside. It was Clay’s door. 

Jensen ran back to Clay’s room. 

******************

It’s the last straw, the straw that breaks Cougar’s façade of uncaring. Eventually, he gets up to take a shower but he can’t sleep that night. He simply lies awake in his empty bedroom, one hand bent behind his head as he stares up at the ceiling. 

He can’t stand to look at any of them and so escapes their barracks about the time Pooch is arriving, the other man’s greeting echoing after him. It takes all day for the brass to see him but Cougar refuses to leave. The experience is utterly humiliating and he can’t fathom how it would feel if Jensen himself came. 

The general laughs in his face at hearing the accusation. 

“Lt Colonel Clay is not abusing his subordinate,” the grey-haired man replies formally, once he’s stopped laughing. 

Cougar wishes that he had the words to convince the man but even if he had more practice speaking he wouldn’t know what to say. All of his evidence seems circumstantial suddenly, and he’s not even the victim. Jensen will never come. 

“Go back to your team, and ask Clay about your suspicions,” the general says in dismissal. 

But Cougar doesn’t go straight back to the barracks. He goes directly to a bar, nursing his anger and a bottle of tequila. Until about midnight, Cougar stays there plotting the death of Lt Colonel William Clay in a dozen different ways. Leaving the man out to dry on a mission seems too impersonal now, or even shooting the man with his rifle. Mostly the sniper just wants to punch those dimples permanently into the Colonel’s face. 

He has to go back sometime, but he’s not at all expecting Clay to be waiting up for him with a bottle of whisky. There’s only one light on, and it’s weak beam throws shadows across the lines of Clay’s face making him look suddenly older as he pours the amber liquid into two tumblers of actual glass. Knowing there’s no use putting this confrontation off, Cougar swiftly sits and knocks the glass back. 

Clay raises one bushy eyebrow as if scolding him for his belligerence. It sets Cougar’s teeth on edge. But Clay begins talking before Cougar can gather his thoughts. 

“Let me tell you a story, about how I didn’t sexually assault Jensen,” Clay starts facetiously. “His parents…”

Cougar interrupts the story with a twitch and a huge eye roll. Either he’s drunk enough to regress to adolescence or he’s spent too much time with Jensen. But the idea that Clay is fucking the younger man because of Jensen’s childhood is ridiculous. 

Clay just waits for the display to end. Then he scolds, “Let me finish, then you can yell at me if you want.” Clay huffs out a big breath and starts differently. “Jensen has always been a genius hacker and also…desperate for attention. His parents didn’t abuse him, they were too busy yelling at each other to bother with their son who got in more and more trouble. Jensen wanted to get caught, wanted his parents to notice, but it was the NSA who showed up at his house.”

Pausing, the older man finishes with a sigh, “By seventeen, Jensen was being trained by the Army. His twin sister, coincidentally, was pregnant at seventeen.”

Cougar wants to roll his eyes again. It’s unusual but others do join up at seventeen. Plenty of guys in the military had absent or abusive parents. But those guys turn out like Roque, not like Jensen. 

But Clay’s only pausing to sip his drink. He glances towards his door as if not wanting to continue. “You can imagine him at seventeen, tall, skinny, loud, obnoxious…the other guys in basic wanted to make him quit, but you see,” Clay flaps his hand at the door. “Jensen’s kinda good at this shit. And he couldn’t exactly quit. And then he wanted to send money to his sister and her kid…”

“Everybody hated him and they hated him more when he persevered. He got put on a team; he got put on a different team, and then he was sent for more training. Other techs were jealous. His teammates wanted to teach the loudmouthed kid a lesson, to show him the ‘real’ world.”

Clay pauses again, but it’s Cougar who needs the break. He’s stopped breathing. Because that’s exactly what he once thought. He doesn’t want to hear anymore but Clay presses on, as if punishing Cougar with details. 

“You know what training is like without being singled out. Some teams just wanted to shut him up. So they roughed him up, left him out to dry on missions, which only encouraged him, of course. Some teams actively tortured him. One time, they made him crawl to the rendezvous point with a broken leg and a bullet in the other. They broke his hands…”

Clay trails off then, before he really gets going. But it’s not the injuries that shock Cougar the most. It’s that these were Jensen’s teammates, that Jensen never had anyone he could trust, that he had no safe place. 

Pouring them each another, Clay drinks half in one gulp. “I wasn’t even on a team with him. Our teams were just on the same stage at the same time, but I saw what they did to him, how they touched him. Like you, I went straight to the brass when we got back,” Clay’s eyes flick up then, to look at Cougar but they don’t quite reach Cougar’s face. 

“They said if I was so worried about him then he was my responsibility,” Clay says finishing up his drink and sitting back in his chair. “They made the two of us our own team and gave us one room. It took a year for Jensen to be able to sleep in the same room with me. And to let me triage him. They…they sometimes took advantage of him being injured.”

Clay pauses again as Cougar drowns in self-recrimination, like how a gently lapping sea can suddenly become a tidal wave. Jensen doesn’t trust him. Cougar knew that and seduced the man anyway. He can’t stay on this team, how can he ever earn the trust of…

“You can’t transfer,” Clay derails his wildly spinning thoughts. “Jensen will know it’s because of him…and he likes you. It wasn’t luck of the draw that put you here. Once I got the go ahead for more team members, I chose each of you. Not just for your skill, but I believed you wouldn’t hurt Jensen.”

Cougar is startled into looking up and, for the first time since the story began, their eyes meet, hold. 

“Besides, we have a mission,” Clay finishes with a thin smile. 

***************

Cougar wakes up the next morning with a hangover. The day only gets worse from there. Clay is thin-lipped and Jensen is absolutely manic with tension, and it has nothing to do with Cougar’s hangover. 

So it’s no surprise when this mission is a clusterfuck. The only thing that keeps Cougar on his perch is the knowledge that Jensen could go off the reservation at any moment, because it’s not like Jensen trusts the rest of them. By the time that they’re heading back to the vehicle, Roque has got Clay slung over his shoulders and Cougar has to help Pooch carry Jensen. 

Cougar’s heart is beating so fast it feels about to escape the cage of his ribs. This is everything he feared. He watched Jensen go down though he did shoot the bastard before he could finish the tech off. He should never have touched Jensen, shouldn’t have gotten involved. 

The man in question is being jostled between the two shorter men as they finally come upon their Hummer. Roque slings the unconscious Clay into the front seat, but there’s nothing really they can do for a hard knock on the head. Jensen is another story. 

He and Pooch carefully lay their burden down in the back and suddenly Cougar can see Jensen’s eyes, bright blue with fear and pain. 

“Clay?” Jensen asks, his voice low and hoarse. Cougar looks down then to the tech’s heaving chest, soaked with blood. “Where’s Clay?”

Roque answers, climbing into the back, “He’s passed out in the front seat. We’re gonna patch you up.”

The reminder of his duty jolts Cougar out of his frozen stillness. He realizes Pooch is already in the driver’s seat and so he climbs into the back, shutting the door. 

Unfortunately being shut in with them, without Clay, agitates Jensen and he struggles against Roque’s restraining hands, the pain only heightening his fear in a cycle until suddenly his breath changes. The wheezing whistling sound is immediately apparent and Cougar spurs into action, removing the armor that was useless against armor-piercing rounds. In those normally pink lips, it’s easy to see the blue creep in as Jensen wheezes.

Since Cougar’s the trained medic, Roque is the one left to soothe the younger man, trying to get Jensen to relax his head back into the SIC’s lap. It would be a funny sight if Cougar’s lungs weren’t clenched with fear, the sniper finding it as hard to breathe as if he were the one with the collapsed lung. 

Even with the vest and shirt cut away, all of Jensen’s layers, and it’s hard to see where the blood is coming from, it mats the blonde chest hair and runs in rivulets down between muscles, under Jensen’s pecs, between his ribs…

Cougar quickly rifles through the kit, swiftly jamming in the needle in the space between ribs to re-inflate the lung. Jensen gasps in a full breath, scrabbling at Roque’s hands on his shoulders. With a full breath in his lungs, Jensen pleads with them. 

“Clay!” the tech calls out for his only refuge now, no longer asking. “Clay, please, hurts…”

“We’re not trying to hurt you,” Roque explains, his growling voice hardly comforting. “We’re trying to save you.”

“Mi cariño,” Cougar finally speaks, meeting those terrified, searching blue eyes steadily. “I would not hurt you,” he says clearly. 

His words don’t take the fear out of those wide eyes, but Jensen doesn’t struggle as Cougar searches out the edges of the injury. It’s a giant hole in Jensen’s chest and Cougar knows how serious this is. 

“Mon Dios,” Cougar swears, causing Roque to look up sharply. But Cougar only shakes his head mutely, not wanting to scare Jensen further. 

Grabbing a pressure bandage from the kit, Cougar has to press down on the wound, trying to keep the man’s blood inside. The pressure makes Jensen writhe, pressing his head back into Roque’s legs and honest-to-god whimpering in distress. 

Seeing now for himself, Roque starts murmuring, “You’re gonna be fine, man. You’re gonna be fine.”

The bumpy ride seems to go on forever but finally the Hummer breaks free of the tree cover and into a clearing. Pooch must’ve radio’d ahead while driving because suddenly the real medics are there with a stretcher, opening the back door. 

Jensen seems surprised by the suddenly bright sunshine as the door opens and he’s hauled out. Cougar ends up squished at the foot of the two stretchers in the helicopter. He had to let the medics do their job, but he still leans forward, reaching out to brush his fingers along Jensen’s knuckles as the man’s pale face turns towards him. 

The blonde is probably delirious, probably only desperate for anything comforting, but, with that one acknowledgement, Cougar vows not to leave Jensen’s side. He’s going to prove that he’s worthy of trust. He shadows the stretcher into the field hospital and waits impatiently in the sitting area until he can invade Jensen’s room. He doesn’t shower, only eats the food that Clay brings him. And he’s the first thing that Jensen sees when he wakes, his fingers the first thing Jensen feels in his reflexively clenching hand. 

Jensen’s so surprised, he can’t even speak so it’s up to Cougar this time to fill the air with words. “You’re safe, mi cariño,” he whispers, thumb rubbing absently over Jensen’s knuckles. 

By the time Jensen leaves the hospital, it’s he who won’t let Cougar out of his sight, following the sniper around with big cow eyes of love and his continuously running mouth. 

******************

A month before Bolivia

Clay blinks open eyes that only see darkness. He’s confused for a moment where he is and what woke him. Then he sees the beam of a torchlight and remembers. They’re on a mission, in South America, everyone asleep in their sleeping bags. As his eyes adjust to the dark, he sees Roque’s bulk passed out next to him and realizes that it’s Pooch’s watch. And then he hears it, a bitten off whimper that he recognizes all too readily. 

His body apparently hasn’t gotten the memo that it’s not his responsibility to comfort Jensen, not anymore. Shifting quietly, Clay can see movement on his other side. Slowly the shapes coalesce into two people curled together. 

Clay can see the broad expanse of Jensen’s clothed back hunched so that none of the blonde’s hair or limbs are visible. But Clay can also see thinner, darker arms winding around that back. Dark eyes glint in the dark like the man’s namesake as Cougar pulls Jensen closer. 

Snipers are naturally possessive, must come from staring down at all of them, like God if you believe in that kinda thing. But Cougar’s perfect for Jensen, they’re perfect for each other and damn Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Clay would pat himself on the back for his omniscience, if he were the type to do that kinda thing. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this fic written for literally years, but I just wasn't confident about it. I've decided to just go ahead and post it.


End file.
